Home again, home again jiggety-jig.......

Only there were more "jogs" than "jigs"......... On Tuesday we went to our appointment for the truck in Trois Rivieres (transmission specialist) and $550 later we left with new drive shaft parts, drove less than a mile and "the truck poltergeist noise" was baaaaaaaaaack!!! We stopped at the mechanic in Charrette on our way back to Bellerives and told him we still had the noise and asked if he thought it was safe to drive home to Michigan - he still thinks it's in the drive shaft....... Tuesday nite last dinner with out "Quebec Family" at the house. Up Wednesday and left at 8:30am - drove to the east side of Toronto and started feeling like there was something else wrong with the truck besides the "poltergeist noise" (that happened every time we decelerated - which believe me happens more often than you would think going down the expressway!!!!!!!!) After stopping several times and Randy checking the tires he felt the right rear hub and it was hot - soooooo we pull off on the next exit, stop at a gas station, Randy asks for a mechanic location, he comes back to me and says "you have to go talk to her", I go in and the young woman is a recent Indian immigrant and speaks halting English......and here we were feeling relieved to be back in a place where people spoke English!!! We were sent to a garage (by now it's 4p) and he says he will work on it in the morning. So we spend the nite in the truck in the garage parking lot, kind of quiet except for the train tracks 5o ft away..
8am and the guy pulls the truck up and takes the dual wheels off......unbelievably half of the hub of the wheel is gone.....like some metal-eating cookie monster took a bite out of it!!! No wonder the hub was hot - so he has to call around looking for a new wheel for a truck as old as ours,finds one, puts it on and we take it for a test drive thinking the "poltergeist noise" should be gone......nope!!!!!! We had the mechanic ride with us he he believes (by obviously process of elimination) it the transfer gears rubbing against each other every time there is no pressure with acceleration.......so $450 more and still the noise!!!!!! We leave there and the truck acts like it's not getting gas.....Randy stops on the side of the road and replaces the fuel filter and it seems to help. We travel to the west side of Toronto without too much traffic trouble, all of a sudden the truck is acting like it's not getting gas again......We pull off on the next exit, come to a stop lite on a hill, and the truck kills.......and won't start without opening the "doghouse" over the engine in the inside of the truck and me pouring gas in the carburetor, with traffic being held up on all sides of us!!! Finally we get the truck started and go downhill to a gas station - Randy fills up thinking maybe one of the tanks has bad gas, changes the tank filter and it still won't run. We ask around for a mechanic (Randy is getting really good at this....) and on the 3rd try we go to a Canadian Tire store with a garage. They check things out and find out the fuel pump is not working!!!! So we spend the nite in the Canadian Tire parking lot in the middle of a mall!!! (the only good thing was that there was a great dollar store!!!) We feed the dogs and have several people stop to visit and ask questions .....one guy even wants to sell us a sled he inherited! All of a sudden a police car pulls up and tells Randy he wants to see his paperwork and wants to know if we are planning to stay there all nite!!?? Yeah....we're broke down!! Randy gives him his rabies certificates for all the dogs, he wants to see Randy's driver's license.....and then our passports!!! Another cop shows up and he starts asking questions, also establishes somehow that Randy was in the Navy in during Viet Nam and that he had buddies in Iraq and tells the other cop he should quit harassing Randy!!! Apparently someone saw us putting the dogs back in their boxes after feeding and said we were "stuffing" dogs into boxes.......yes some of them need help so I actually lift them up and help move their legs to make it easier!!!! So that's really why the policed were there!

By now we are on Friday..........they told us they opened at 8 so we get up and drop dogs at 7:30 so we are ready for them.......however the part doesn't get there until 11:30!!! They put the new pump on and it doesn't seem to help - they put it back in the shop and one guy notices that 1/2 of the carb is not getting gas, he blows it out with air and thankfully, it runs good. We leave there, no problems getting to the border..........1 hour wait for all the people wanting to go to Michigan - looked in our trailer and asked about the dogs and WE ARE IN MICHIGAN!!!!

Get 1/2 way to Flint and the truck starts acting up again (mind you we still have the "poltergeist noise" going on and off during all of this time!!) We stop and feed dogs and Randy decides to change spark plugs and wires so we do that and take off and it seems to be running pretty good.....for awhile! We stop 2 other times and find out the wires (which were not exactly the right kind for the engine) had pushed off going down the road..........all of this hassle and we finally make it home at 2:30am!!!! My Lord what a trip!!!

Slept in Sat. and got groceries and mail from Jess' house and wanting to relax, turned on the TV to find out that, even with the HD converter box, we get only one station....channel 13....now!!
And we used more propane keeping the house from freezing this year so the propane tank is on 0%!!! (good thing I took a shower/hot water already!!)

Randy put all the dogs out into the kennel and they were soooooo happy to be going there they knocked him down twice! The weather was beautiful, only a lite jacket daffodils coming up in my garden and this morning we wake up to 2 inches of snow!!!! I think Randy has "jet lag" and is napping today so probably no training today for the 20 young dogs we have to expose to dogsledding and the grandkids are in Maryland and Idaho so nobody here to try the new "little people sled"!!!! even with the snow!

Despite the truck problems we had a great winter and as Randy says, "are Blessed and thankful to be able to have lived the Musher's Dream!!!!!"

PS the pictures on the top are of the river looking at the location of the the previous picture of the church, the lobby of the hotel, and Randy at the awards ceremony with the Wendat Indian tribe Chief

What a way to end the season!!!!

Upper left pix: me in the lobby of the hotel/museum that the race was held at on the Wendat Indian Reservation- notice the skin-covered drum tables and wolf hides! Upper right: a painting on the concrete embankment along the river depicting the story of the life of the Wendat Indians Lower left: the Indian church fro the early 1800's Lower right: the race parking lot with our truck in the foreground, the hotel/museum in the backround, with the river running with rapids all along the back of the building!

Thursday nite we did go bowling at Place Biermans again (Claude is quite the 10 pin bowler and has bowled more with us in the last month than in the last 10 years!) This week I didn't have sciatic nerve pain from being goofy prior to bowling but my game didn't improve drastically!! I think the best was 138 - and Randy really had a hard time cause his knee is still hurting - even with wearing a brace! so his bowling score was the worst of the guys...Marcel and Ghyslain joined us.

Up at the crack of 9am Friday morning and packed up and cleaned the sugar shack and bid it a fond farewell! Left Charrette for Quebec City about 11......about an hour down the road on a really rough patch, what should re-appear, but the horrible metal on metal noise we thought we got rid of last weekend!!!!!!!!!! My anxiety level immediately soars cause we don't know what it is making the noise or if we are going to break down on the expressway any minute!! It comes and goes every few minutes or so we are on pins and needles all the way into the city, get lost making wrong turns a couple of times in the city (tension getting pretty high!!) and we finally make it to the hotel.......just beautiful area and so much Indian heritage. The bib draw was held in the Wendat community hall which is decorated with Indian artifacts and moose and bear, etc. I did manage to shop "quickly" on the way to the meeting and picked up some grandkids stuff!! Moccasins (one pair for the new baby) and other Indian items. I got number 16 and Randy was amazed to get #1!!! (which is really good in a race when you have head-on passing the whole trail - cause then you have no one to pass until after you make the turn-around).

Saturday was sunny, warm and the snow on Sarah (Randy's leader) is pregnant and can't run the longer trail and we just got a little girl "Ace" from Claude and Randy isn't sure she can run 8 miles (my trail is only 4.7 mi) I am my usual "nervous self" before going out not knowing for sure what the trail will be like ......especially the turn around on a fairly icy trail! No problems head-on passing with my "trusty leaders" Fratz and Spiff, I do however run up on 4 4-wheelers going up the hill slower than my team is going (part of the trail is a snowmobile/4-wheeler trail and they can't close it down for the race!) so I am yelling at the top of my lungs to tell them to hurry up (like that does alot of good when they probably only speak French) and it does no good.....then on the way back after I slid around the turn around, there's somebody's pet dog in the trail!!!!!!! I am thinking the worst.....dog fight.....my dogs chasing him off the trail into someone's back yard, you can imagine!!!! Nope!! Frantz and Spiff cruise by, no problem! I drive them hard back over about 6 road crossings with people everywhere yelling and clapping and finish strong! You will never believe what I see when they pass out the times........me in 6th place!!!!!!!! You have to remember this is stiff competition and this is the best I have ever done!!!!! It was the fasted 15 minutes of my life!!!!

Randy had not such a great run.........Rudolph pushed little girl Spring way out cause he was getting tired in the soft snow, so she quits and Randy has to put her in the sled!! So he ends up 13th......not what he wanted at all!!

Saturday nite we walked around town and took pictures and spent time visiting with other dog drivers.

Up on Sunday and I am nervous cause I don't want to screw up my place but know how easy it can happen!!! Then we find out with only 15 minutes to spare that the 6 dog class is going out 30 minutes earlier today.......so speed/panic preparations.....up to the line.......even softer trail today.......good start though Sarah isn't really pulling at point......she starts to pull....good.....then I notice Tarzan next to her.....not pulling....actually pulling back!!!!! I slow them down for him not knowing what his problem is......finally I think I am going to have to put him in the sled....and see my name dropping place by place in the standings!!!! I stop the sled and have my gloves off and he acts like he wants to go......we start going and he does better but never pulls the whole way until the last mile where he stops and poops and then actually looks like he might be helping!!! I try Randy's theory about yelling loud enough to make the dogs focus on only the driver and whether it's working I can't tell and we finish 9th!!! Still very good!! On the way back to the truck somehow Randy trips and falls flat on the pavement while leading my team, thinks he broke his hand and now doesn't have just a sore knee, but a whole body!!!

Randy is in the chute with 9 dogs today (I tried to convince him to only take the ones he was really really sure of) and they count down to 5, 4, 3 and I look up and the shyest dog in the team is fanned way out to the side cause her neck line is off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am holding the leaders, Randy just got his gloves on and 3 people jump in to try and catch her and re-hook her!!!!! She's like a squirming worm and finally one of the other dog drivers get ahold of her and holds her tight enough to hook her in and Randy is off!!!! Well.........I can take maybe a little credit for the suggestion about taking "sure dogs" but Randy pulled off the biggest save I have ever see him do!!!!!!!!!!!!! He passed 2 teams and almost caught another and moved from 13th to 6th!!!! The dogs worked really hard and so did he.....pumped the whole trail even hurting with his knee and from the fall!!! Lou Serre also made a huge improvement and came from 5th to win!!!!

The awards were at the same hall and when I went up to get my check I thanked all the Quebec club members for how wonderful they are to us while we are here and Randy said it was great to compete against the best competition in dogsledding!! Lots of cheers and lots of saying goodbye until next season! To celebrate our anniversary and good fortune we walked about a mile both ways and found a little bistro to have dinner - the bartender, who did speak English, had very little on the menu but said the "dried beef sandwich" was good - do that's what we got!!! I was half way thru the sandwich when I realized it was "corned beef"!!!!!

Back to the bad, unknown-source-of-origin noise..... Randy had looked under the truck and thinks the noise is coming from the place where the drive shaft connects to the transmission but needs an impact wrench to get it apart. He had inquired with the help of some very nice local guys and the soonest they could get us in a transmission shop was Tues. So Monday morning (we slept in the hotel parking lot) we are up dropping dogs and the same guys stop by and volunteer to take us to a fellow dog driver's garage and help us fix it!!! We follow them to the garage, they get a new part, put it in, we thank them and force some money on them knowing it was way cheaper, and we are on our way!!! Not 3 miles down the road just as we are getting on the expressway................the dreaded noise, AGAIN!!!!!!!! So not only did we not fix it last weekend in La Tuque, we did not fix it today!!!!!! We drove all the way back to Bellerive's with the same heightened anxiety level accompanied by an extra measure of frustration!!!!!!! Stopped at the local garage and the mechanic rode with us to hear the noise and now we have an appointment tomorrow at 10am with him!!!!! So much for going home today!!!

Does this look like dogsledding weather????!!!!!!!!

From the pictures of Randy sitting out in front of the sugar shack reading his book with the door open and how much snow we have lost you can see that Spring has come to Quebec!!!

The race is still on so we will stay the weekend and leave Monday.
Trained yesterday and have made the final pick for the teams this weekend. The race start is at a Indian (they call them First Nation people in Canada) museum just outside of Quebec City and I am really looking forward to it!!!! It is supposed to be on a bike path and snowmobile trail and though it normally would be fast (flat and hard) it may be a little soft due to the weather forecast of above freezing.

Went to Melanie's house (she lives about 2 blocks from her parents in a very typical "Quebec house" with the curved roof and gabled windows in front) for dinner last nite and had good conversation with Patrick and Mel!! (Claude and Renelle went to have dinner with the priest who is trying to talk them into making a trip to Rome with him).

Today change the bedding in some boxes (some of the girls think they have toilette facilities in their boxes) and maybe some cleaning of the sugar shack as we will leave for the race tomorrow afternoon and will only stop briefly to pick up the snowmobile and trailer on the way back.

Wait and see.......

These are pictures from the race at La Baie last weekend - there was a woman there taking them and sent them to us email- they are both of Saturday - I can tell because Salt, the dog he used in the open team was lead on Sun and she is blonde- and he used Fratz (the 2nd dog at point on the right in my team) in lead on Sun. It doesn't really show how hilly it was but good pix of the dogs and Randy!!
Last nite we had dinner with the Bellerives at the restaurant (I am now able to order my favorite meal in "almost flawless French" - 6 garlic shrimp and red wine!!! We had a call from one of the dogsled club members that said the trail for this weekend is still good, the weather says rain for Wed and they will call it on or off on Wed nite - so we decided to stay until Wed (what's 2 more days!!) and if it is on we will stay and come home Monday - so today is communication and rest day.......again!!!

The picture of the house with the dragon coming out of the side of it was taken outside of La Tuque- the people of Quebec are very creative…there was also one that looked like a nome home but I didn’t get a picture of it!
We left Friday at about 10:30 (as I said, it is supposed to be a 4 hour trip but we know it will probably be 6 for
us!) and did take the route up 155 through La Tuque – what a beautiful road!!! We have to imagine how it would look in the summer……river and lakes all along the highway! Not so mountainous on the road because it follows the river bed, but surrounded on both sides by mountains. Got through La Tuque and all of a sudden we heard this loud, grating-on-metal sound, which we thought was coming from the front passenger side wheel!! Randy thought perhaps it was the calipers on the brakes making the sound but the right wheel seemed fine. We started down the road again and it made the same noise(it sounded like the exhaust pipe or the drive shaft was dragging on the pavement!) Randy had to stop at an inopportune place on the road with logging trucks whizzing by us, and crawled under the truck and couldn’t see anything wrong.
Looking at the map, it was a 2 hour stretch ahead of us with no towns,and I really didn’t want to get broke down out in the middle of nowhere, so we turned around and went a ½ hour back to La Tuque – a garage was willing to look at it for us, and another ½ hour and $33 ( would have been more but Randy had the parts to fix it in the back of the truck!) and we found out that it was actually the caliper on the driver’s side wheel!! Somehow, the sound transferred sides of the truck!
So we had lost 1 ½ hours but we were back on the road. Sure enough, it is a lonnnnnnggggggg way on a 2 lane highway with no houses, no towns, just trees! Finally made it to the race site with no more problems (stopped to feed at Lac St. Jean – huge, huge lake). The road to the race start was all along a river for probably 5 miles, and the building is set up for the cross country skiing and nature trails all around the park, in the mountain and around the river with many waterfalls. The building was an old Quonset hut made into a rustic restaurant/hall with fireplace and all! We parked across the street from the river side in the lot and then to start the race you had to go over the road, then over a bridge over the river (see the picture above) The first time I went over it I didn’t notice the rushing water below me but then bringing the dogs back over, they were pushing me into the side of the bridge (where there are big gaps between the boards!!!) and I thought “how easy it would be for my foot to go thru there!”
Now comes the good part- should Cris race this “rock and roll course” (as Melanie Bellerive described it to me) up and down hills (not small ones) with curves (not easy ones) at the bottom of most of them that’s covered with icy snow??????? Yes….no…..yes……am I being a chicken…….no…..maybe it isn’t as bad as everbody is telling me…..yes………if I fall I could get hurt really bad and end up in a Quebec hospital………no………will everbody think I am a wimp…….yes…….and on and on ad nauseum. Finally I told Randy to make the decision….no was the decision, too risky (see Mom and Dad he does take good care of me!!!!) I am still second guessing myself today and wish I could have done it!!! So Randy ran my 6 dog team – the first day he ran Molly in lead and found out she really is not recovered from her shoulder injury (she wouldn’t run down any of the hills- and there were a lot of them like ½ of the trail) so he came in 10th. The second day he went with 5 dogs and drove them really hard (of course I think they would have responded better to me) and we thought sure he would move up, but actually moved down a place and was a little bit slower (partly due to the snow being slightly mushier/stickier and maybe because Molly was working a bit!)
For the open on Saturday Randy went out with 13 dogs and had no problems except that his leaders can’t stay out ahead of the team and he had to slow them down in order to keep the point dogs from running over the lines. He came in 14th. Sunday he took a major risk and put a dog we just got 2 weeks ago and had only put in lead for a part of a training run in lead (Salt) we were prepared to change her out with another leader right up until he left the chute if she looked like she was nervous about leading – but she didn’t and she did fine……except she isn’t any faster than the other leaders! So he stayed in 14th.
I wasn’t the only one wanting to race but deciding on not to being concerned for my health……..Melanie got to the race site on Sat morn and was loading dogs, twisted her neck and could hardly move for 2 hours- she ended up thinking she might hurt herself worse by racing, and though she would have likely won the 8 dog, let Hermel drive part of her team, put 2 in Patrick’s and gave two to her father to run in the open team. Though having Melanie’s dogs in his team didn’t help as much as she thought as he came in 5th! Eddy Clifford had a great day and “out-waxed” everybody in the open – his first win in Quebec!!! Congratulations Eddy!
After the awards, (we had already fed) we left for the “sugar shack”. This time no problems with the truck and made it back here by 10:30. Today the sun is shining, the birds are coming back from the south, the snow is melting and we are waiting to hear the weather forecast for St. Emile to decide whether to leave tomorrow or to stay for the last race. I am torn……would like to get back and see family (baby Chavis in Mitz, Aeja and Ocean and Oak) but would like to have one more successful race for myself to end the year!!!

Training and getting ready for "La Baie"

Last weekend we got the sled we had ordered way back in January- isn't it cute??!!! and won't our 4 grandkids look cute driving it???!!!!

Tuesday trained my team and some others to see if they are recovered enough to race this weekend. It was quite warm and sunny. Wednesday trained all of Randy's dogs and the weather was horrible!!! About 30 degrees and raining!!!! miserable - even with rain coats on we were soaked by the end of the 11 miles!!! Went out to dinner for pizza. Today we are getting ready to leave early tomorrow morning so I want to have most things packed and we cut toe nails and watered and extra time since they missed a breakfast this last week. Tonight we go for a "rematch" of the bowling!!!! I think both Claude and Melanie are looking to "give me a run for my money" !!!

We are taking the flatter route up thru La Tuque to La Baie and it is supposedly very scenic - and very important.........- I printed a map from the web to get us there!!!!! It is supposed to be a 4 hour trip but it will probably take us 6!!!!!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

Pictures I forgot: me at L' Epiphanie (red hat, back turned) getting my check; me with my Mushing USA jacket on in Bellerive's house

We can start out with the Good: Thursday the 6 of us (Bellerives and Lou Serre) were hosted by the Bellerives at their business, "Place Biermans" for dinner and lots of fun- I will try to post some pictures from their web site, but is is a "family entertainment complex" with 6 theaters, a Greek restaurant, bumper cars, every arcade game imaginable, billiard room, dancing club and bowling alley (did I leave anything out?). This is their smaller business in addition to their roofing business. We had a great time, Claude, Renelle and I had scampi for dinner, Lou and Randy steaks and Melanie fish- delicious- don't think I have ever seen such big scampi!!! Then off to the bowling alley - Claude and Renelle even brought their own bowling shoes which they can't remember the last time they used - I think the last time they bowled was with us 2 years ago! So you can choose......regular bowling or a smaller-larger-than-a-softball bowling (I think they called it "10 pin") and I was really glad that somebody chose the 10 pin cause I bowled the best game of my life!!!! I didn't get to see the scores for the first game but on the 3rd Claude and I tied for first at 191!!

Now the Bad: Started packing up for the trip to the race at Kamarouska Friday morning (pack people food, dog food, feed the dogs, drop the dogs, fill the gas, pack the clothes, feed the people, check the brakes, etc.) and finally left at 11 for the "4 hour trip" up to Quebec City, across the St. Laurence, up the St. Laurence to Kamarouska.....only the race they call "Kamarouska" is really "St. Gabrielle de Kamarouska".......so we went at least 1/2 hour further than we needed to (note to Cris; next time check the website to double check the race location) and stopped for directions at a grocery store where the only person in there didn't speak English (even with my marvelous "miming/sign language abilities"!!!) and couldn't help so sent me to a red house across the street where they make home made soaps (she told me it is a very touristy town and she makes $80,000 seasonally) and they looked in the newspapers, called friends and finally figured out where the race was and gave us directions- back to one turning point in the town of Pancome, made the wrong choice and stopped for directions again, got a nice English speaking man to tell us to go straight at the church (by the way, it was built in 1851- that's older than the Civil War!!!)
and we found the small village of St. Gabrielle - now you would think that you should be able to tell in a small village where the dog sled race was to take place......not so!!! Stopped at a house, English speaking girl says straight at the corner.
Now the UGLY!!!!!! Randy pulls out from the front alley/drive of this house and all of a sudden we hear this very loud sound on top of the truck and see this blue wire hanging down from the sleds..........you got it........clothes line haging across the alley way!!!!! so this guy comes over mad, Randy tries to communicate, not, they both go over to a mechanic building and see if this guy speaks English, NOT, Randy throws his hands up in the air and says we will be here for the race this weekend, we drive around the village still not findig the race site, a guy stops in front of us with his truck says "follow me to the race site" and guess who is following us???........the clothesline guy!!!!!! The truck guy helps Randy to offer some money and the guy won't take $100, says that probably won't be enough!! So we finally find our parking spot and by this time Randy is on his last nerve!!!

Sat morning is warm and starting to get slushy and I have not good idea what kind of trail I am going out on in the 6 dog- we get our bibs at the drivers meeting and who shows up.......the clothesline guy with a bill for $120 ($20 of it is labor). To avoid possible world conflict, Randy pays the guy................what a fiasco!!

I go out and have good run - the curves aren't too bad; playing it conservatively cause I now know it's better to be in control and not drag or fall or lose your team!!! The worst part is the teeny weeny turn-around 1/2 way, I'm thinking go slow into the turn, it looks pretty good and then wham!!!!!! hard left, almost lost it, said "OH S--T!!!" and stayed on! Amazing grace, I came in 11th ......and we are talking almost all of the best 6 dog teams in Eastern Canada, and 33 of them!!!!!!

Randy goes out with 14 dogs, has a really good run going until..............head on pass at the road crossing, his dogs shy to the right, 2 of them hit a stop sign, break the snaps on both their neck lines and tug lines (so they are free) the one runs down the trail ahead of Randy, comes back when he calls him, gets to the team and turns around and heads down the trail again, but finally comes back and Randy has to go back to the sled to get neck lines to hook him back in the team - the 2nd dog is very shy and usually doesn't come well when we loose drop them so Randy was very lucky that he didn't realize he was loose and Randy sneaked up on him caught him!!! Then as he was trying to leave this mess.......the snow hook won't come out, it kind of comes out, catches again, and Randy rams his mouth into the driving bow!!!!!! (his upper lip is twice as big as normal and a lovely shade of purple!!) He used up alot of his time "playing around with the loose dogs" and came in 15th.

Because it was the 30th anniversery of the race, they had wine and dinner for all the mushers and a kareoke guy that sounded alot like Frank Sinatra- I asked him if he could play something a little faster to dance to and he said his instructions were to play "tranquil" = so Randy danced one slow dance with me, one with Real Turmel and one with Simon (the really good dancer from the L' Isle aux Coudres dance)

Sunday, a little cooler (still about 30 degrees) and even though I knew what the trail was like yesterday, that turn around loop and it being faster still made me nervous!.....went out conservatively, slowed a little at the loop, almost lost my footing but stayed up (no small thanks to the prayer I said on the trail!!!) and the only other problem was an almost crash at the last curve with a head on team with me on the right and them trying to take the curve on the inside- the same side as me!!! close but no crash!! Begosh and begorah.......I came in 9th!!!!!

Randy made a wise decision (knowing the trail was getting slushier by the minute) and took out 2 dogs and changed leaders and finally had a clean run!!!! moved up from 15th to 10th!!!!! (maybe the end of our run of bad luck????????)

Back to Bad (but not really soooooooo bad) I missed our turn off to go back to Bellerives through Quebec City, so it may have been a few miles longer and then when we got back to the "sugar shack" at 10:30p, no lights, no power! Slept in the truck (good thing we have it for a option!!!!)

L' Epiphanie Race Weekend

I left you on a rainy day on our way to L’ Epihanie…..and it rained……and it rained…..and it rained! The “little bit” we were supposed to get probably ended up to be about 2 inches and turned the streets into big puddles on top of ice in the village of L’ Epiphanie. We parked in one spot and had to move over 10 ft. cause we were sitting in 4 inches of water to drop the dogs in! Stopped raining about 9pm and they decided that with some modifications to the trail, the race would go on! Johnson’s were at the driver’s meeting (from MN, Neal and Carolyn and their 2 little girls)- we hadn’t seen them in a long time, and Keith Bryar and Jimmy Lyman were up from NH.
Up the next morning to a beautiful sunny day- warm enough for only a couple of layers- but the trail was like a million pieces of glass (it had gotten cold overnite and by whatever scientific process, the snow had become crystalline). I talked to someone who had gone out in the 4 dog and he said the trail was pretty good –Now I was feeling a little bit confident because the map they had drawn of the trail showed huge, sweeping curves out in a flat field with very little head-on passing. The part about the fields was correct; the curves were pretty much mostly right angles and the turnaround loop was one of those deals where I went around sideways!! However, no falling, no losing team!!! Came in 11th!!
Randy had a fair day- left with 16 and 4 of them were not performing for a variety of reasons (mostly that the 14 mile trail with the ice crystals made for “instant fissures” (cuts in the palm of the dogs foot) which caused them to not pull, and often pull back on the neck line. He ended up 12th, not what he would have preferred, of course.
Jokingly (well, ½ jokingly anyway), the nite before at the driver’s meeting I had asked Sebastian (a young guy that quite often travels with Serge Pomerlau and his handler, Herve Bellanger) when we could come to have dinner with them in the huge, beautiful motor home that Serge has – so Sebastian says Serge wants us to come to dinner and if we want to bring something it could be dessert. So after we feed and ask a local dog driver going to the store to pick up cake for us at the grocery store, we go over to the “Serge Motorhome” (you may remember seeing a picture of it when we were at Daaquam and he got stuck in the snow next to us). It is quite luxurious and Serge is a wonderful host and chef. Dinner was delicious and we were all too full for cake!
Sunday I am a lot more nervous (darn butterfly stomach) cause I know the trail is not a piece of cake and I really don’t want to make any mistakes and drop down in the standings, but I want to go as fast as I can without screwig things up! The trail was faster, as it had been cold overnite, but about the same consistency of crystalline snow – it didn’t seem to bother my “fearless leaders”, Spiff and Fratz and they all pulled hard and came in strong, and I went around the trail very conservatively, slowing down at the corners, etc. Imagine my surprise when Randy brought me the results that not only had I not dropped any places, I had moved up to 10th!!! I think this is probably the best I have done in a competitive race (and though some of the competition was not there, like Melanie drove an 8 dog team instead of 6) it was still highly competitive!
Randy had a not so good day…….he made a driver error and should have put boots on all 4 feet of Holly instead of 2 and she didn’t want to run from the start and he had to stop and put her in the dog bag out only 2 miles. Then a snap on the leader’s neck line came open and Sarah stopped and backed out of her harness so tight that he could hardly get it back over her head, and then another neck line came off a dog and the dog also backed out his harness- so that was 3 times he had to stop and had a dog in the sled for 12 miles so he dropped from 12th to 17th. Not good. It was one of those “this is the last race we’re going to do this year” moments (which did pass and we’re doing 2 more races).
The awards at L’ Epihanie are the nicest of any of the Quebec races – free buffet dinner at the ceremony!! When I went up to get my check for 10th place I was surprised to hear loud cheering from the New Hampshire contingent and all around the room – I think people have seen me try hard and have problems all year and were happy I finally had been successful! I will publish the picture, but you won’t be able to tell it’s me in the black shirt and red ball cap, cause Randy took a picture of the back of me!
Randy has healed from the “dragging injury” but now his left knee is sprained and it’s really putting a crimp in his racing style (makes pumping to help the dogs impossible and turning corners painful) so he is pretty much limping very short distances- I, on the other hand, have less pain in my elbow so I am on the mend.
After the buffet/awards fed dogs in the dark and left for Bellerives and the “sugar shack” – left about 7:30p but as we left town Randy noticed that the alternator was not charging, which meant to him (certainly not to me) that the belt was broken – so we stopped at a closed store under a big light and Randy proceeded to pull a belt out of the back of the truck fixed things. The thing you have to recognize and appreciate about this man is that not only did he have the gauge to monitor, he diagnosed the problem, had the forsight to bring many extra parts for all kinds of problems, had the tools and the knowledge to do the job!! Pretty amazing husband I have!!! So we were back on our way in 15 minutes and back to the sugar shack by 9p.
Monday was a recovery day – all of us were very tired and napped and read much of the day until time to go out to the restaurant with Bellerives and Lou Serre. Talk about good dogsledding stories!!!!!
Lou – had 3 dogs not pulling in his team on Sunday and couldn’t fit all of them in the back so left them with someone on the trail , thereby getting disqualified – his dog’s feet need some healing-
Claude – fasted time on Sunday, but Saturday he stopped to load a dog and went off the trail into someone’s back yard, the dog escaped from the bag, then caught up with him later in the trail and he was able to coax the dog back to him and re-load him
Mellanie- Sat and Sun went off the trail (little to no birm on the trail in the fields) and needed help to get back on and still came in first place in the 8 dog
Casey Butler – head on passing Rudy Ropertz (this season’s leader in the unlimited and many other classes at every race, from Germany) and Rudy’s leaders jump over his team and cause a cluster – Casey is so upset he calls his Dad, Doug, on his cell phone while he is still racing!!!
And those are only the highlites!!!!! We all had to agree at dinner last nite, that dogsled racing provides an endless number of great stories of courage and stamina and frustration and humor and you can’t do it just because you have to win, you do it because you want to compete and do the best you and your dogs can do…how’s that for philosophical??!!
Tonite another dinner in the sugar shack with spaghetti sauce from Lou’s wife and me making 7 layer cookies (I just hope I can remember what the 7 layers are…..)
The pictures are of Randy and Diane Lyman at the starting and finishing chute, a movie showing some scenes from the truck, me getting my 10th place check from “very far away”, one of the characters they had for the kids, and some snow sculptures they were doing and pix of Melanie leaving the chute on Sunday with Claude and Randy in the backround- and oh yeah, some of the inside of the "infamous DeKuiper Dog Truck" - that's about as tidy as I can make it look!

Off to the race in the rain!!

It's noon - did some work on my new case and now we are off to L' Epiphanie for a race this weekend (if the rain doesn't spoil the trail!) It's about 1.5 hours from here - don't know about computer access so it may be Sunday nite before I write again! Have a great weekend everybody!!!

Some pictures of the local scenery!

Hello out there!! The top 2 pictures are of the Bellerive property- the left is standing in the street looking at the barn with my back to the house and on the right the reverse- the "fairytale looking" spiraled part of the house is a little library and the barn to the right of the first barn is actually much bigger and is where all the dogs live in a heated barn with individual water on demand!

The 3rd picture is the table I set for all of us for dinner on Tues nite - I had invited them last week because they are always feeding us and I thought "why didn't I think of this before????" It turned out to be delightful and we had such fun and conversation (binlingual of course) They liked my chili well enough that they want the recipe - the problem is I never make anything the same way twice (that can happen when you don't use a recipe) and the can of chili I used for a "starter" I don't even know if you can buy in Quebec! The "piece de resistance" was dessert - homemade hot fudge sauce (from my Mom and sister Bec's recipe) and a sundae bar with even "good and plentys"! In the pix below you can see I even had an "appropriate" centerpiece - a little girl with her dog and sled candle holder that my sister Kay gave me!!

We trained dogs yesterday so today was just "Fun Drop Day" = we had a thought from Terry Streeper saying that often to teach young dogs to stay around the truck he chains them to another one that does - so today we hooked Bell (the girl we spend 20 minutes trying to catch each time) to my leader Fratz, who never wants to leave my side - so she got "reined in" and he got more exercise than normal which is good for him!!

I am tickled to say I got another Morningstar Health case to manage today, so the afternoon has been that and laundry and writing to you!! Back up to the sugar shack to feed the "crew" as Randy calls them and then back down here for supper which I see Lise (the Bellerives longtime friend, cook, housekeeper, message center, you get the picture) cooking in the kitchen as we speak - fish!

Lazy Days!

Not a lot happening the last few days- mostly training on the Bellerive’s trail (since we decided not to go to a race in Maine) cause they had just started putting the trail in on Monday (and those of you who know about trails, know that usually doesn’t mean a very packed trail). So Lou is off to visit his wife and family in Ottawa and Bellerives had things they needed to do with a free weekend without a race, so Randy and I spent some lazy days with good books and movies (borrowed from Lou) plus I have been feeling kind of “flu-y” since last Friday, so the break was good for me. Almost back to my “normal self” today. We have had one dog with diarrhea for the same period of time and got him some Imodium from Melanie yesterday – so maybe I have had a “dog flu”!!!
We were supposed to have the Bellerive family up here to the sugar shack for dinner tonite but as I explained I wasn’t feeling too chipper yesterday, they immediately told me to postpone – so I have all the fixin’s for chili, garlic bread, hot fudge sundaes (with homemade sauce) but it maybe won’t be until Tuesday.
I have also been a bit busy with “real work”- got assigned a case from the job with Morningstar Health and know that it can be done easily with the phone and computer set-up I have.
Funny thing happened yesterday when we were at the drug store in town trying to find some Immodium- a French speaking couple stopped me in the parking lot and asked me if I could tell them how to get to Trois Rivieres – so here you have the American telling 2 Quebec people directions!!!!! I even think they understood me!!
We also have had a real problem with too many females in heat!!!! We have 5 of them tied up at the back of the truck together but it still raises havoc with all the males that want to break their chains and get back there!! While we were free-dropping the dogs the last time, the female most in-season, was up in her box on the second level, and my leader, Spiff, did everything except crawl up the side of the truck trying to get to her!! It was kind of like a “doggy Romeo and Juliet” except he was very loud about his wishes and frustration!!! I wanted to come in and get the camera but the last time I did that while they were loose, 3 dogs sneaked into the house and made a mess tipping over buckets of dog food!!!

Happy Birthday Luke and Bec!!! WE love you!!!

Tuesday was a pretty uneventful day (which was good after yesterday's events!!) Free dropped the dogs at the sugar shack and you can just tell they are very happy to be "out and about"!! 30 wagging tails and only some minor quibbling. Too soon to train again so we read some, watched a movie that Lou Serre loaned us and joined the Bellerives, Lou other friends Marcel and his wife GiGi for dinner at the Villageaous in Charrette. I had my new favorite "crevette i alail" or something like that (which is garlic shrimp). I try very hard to order and speak in French as much as I can but it's not very good and most often not understandable!!!!!! That reminds me of a funny story that happened on the island last weekend (don't think I told it already - don't read it if I have) We met the woman that was called "Noelange" which is Christmas angel (If I were still having babies I might name a girl that!) who was also the sister of a woman we became friends with the last 2 years we went to the Lil aux Coudres island race = I don't remember her real name because everybody calls her "BaDa" (as in the Flintstones, Fred's "yaba-daba doo"!) So on Sunday Noelange comes to the truck to tell us that our friend Francine (whom we stayed with for 2 years at her home overlooking the St. Laurence Seaway) will be stopping by that afternoon. Well, not only does Randy call her the wrong name (her name is Noelange he calls her BaDa) but he pronounces it totally incorrectly as "bidette" (like "biday"), which we all know is something very different, and the funniest thing is that Randy had no idea until later I explained to him he had called her "an upside down shower for private parts"!!!!!!!!

Today, Wednesday, we trained 2 teams on a very hard packed trail and things went pretty well except for at the road crossing (Claude's training trail goes across a very busy hiway and someone has to get up onto the road to see if traffic is clear before the dog team can cross) and so we are coming back from the other side of the road with a team of 12, Lou Serre is following us (also using a snowmobile to train) and we see up ahead Claude with a team of at least 12 on the other side of the road and Marcel with a team of 8 in the trail still hooked to the tuck but head-on on our side of the road!!! It was like a dogsled-traffic jam!!!! So Claude came across the road head-on to us and I was holding our leaders, and kabam! Claude's leaders and first 6 dogs bunched up into a terrible mess of dogs and lines!!! Everybody turned out OK but it took Hermel (the dog trainer and friend) and me to untangle them - looked like "dog spaghetti"!!

This afternoon I am just catching up on some laundry and communication at the "big house".
Have great birthday today Lucas and tomorrow Bec!!!!

The DeKuiper Curse and Blessings!!!

The pictures above are from the Bellerive's "sugar shack" so that you know what a delightful cabin we are staying in with our friends! the top 2 show the actual "syrup manufacturing" area and the bottom 2 are of the living quarters of the cavin with some of our "stuff' around.

Up this morning at the “crack of 8”, the lone soldiers in the dog parking area of the race- thought we better hustle so we could still feed dogs breakfast and get to the ferry for the next run at 9 am . Travel down to the ferry, and as we remembered……stuck waiting on the down hill with a 10% grade down to nowhere but water (the St. Laurence Seaway with iceburgs floating in a very fast current) for the ferry to unload and the cars ahead of us to load…at least the road was pretty dry so we didn’t end up sliding like we did 2 years ago and had to turn the wheels into the snow bank to stop!! Uneventful until the “DeKuiper truck curse” struck again!!!!! Going up one of the very steep hills back on the engine just up and quits…and Randy pull over to get out of traffic and try and get the motor running again so we don’t roll all the way back down the hill! So I hear Randy say “I didn’t mean to pull over that far” as the truck slides into the snowbank on a deceivingly sloping shoulder and sure as the lilacs bloom in the spring, we are stuck…..really stuck….stuck so tight on the driver’s side you cant’ get the only door open (like in a motor home) He got the engine running (for those of you who don’t know the engine is in the inside of the truck under the “doghouse” and we have to move everything we have handy in the front while going down the road – like coffee, snacks, maps, etc. every time we have an engine problem) by pouring gas in the carburetor but it kept quitting, so he changed the gas filter, and switched the gas tanks (of which we have many- but none of them register on the gas gauge). So we have the engine running but are very stuck and so Randy rolls down the driver’s side window so he can crawl out and assess the situation….. well he shovels and shovels and then tells me I have to try to move the truck….this is way beyond my expertise…..I hate driving this truck!!! I try moving it despite my reservations, and no go! We keep sliding farther into the bank! So a very nice guy in a pick-up truck that also happens to speak English stops and asks if we need help and thinks there is no way he can pull us out…..just as I am getting really frustrated and Randy yells at me to get the tow strap out (and I throw it out the window to/at him) a wonderful snow plow driver comes along and “the DeKuiper Blessing” is in full effect!~! the guy hooks us to the snowplow (you have never seen such huge snowplows as they have in Quebec!) and ….zippppppp… we’re out!!
Nothing earthshattering happens the rest of the drive back to Charrette…..until we get to the hill going up to the “Bellerive’s sugar shack”- our “home away from home” In our absence over the weekend I notice that everybody’s driveways and parking lots look like ice skating rinks and I say to Randy “maybe you should start up the hill as far back as you can so you can make it up the hill” – “naw, we can make it no problem” is the reply I get. Once again, up to the crest of the very icy, slippery hill and have to back down, sliding/backing and re-start from farther back. Again up to the crest of the hill a little closer…..and for the second very nervewracking time of the day….stuck!!!! This time on ice and the wheels spinning. I say “is there something we can put under the tires to get out” and Randy thinks to use the garage floor soak we put in the dog boxes (for those girls with small bladders) and it did the trick!!! Needless to say folks, it was time for a glass of wine!!!
Had dinner at the Bellerive’s home (soup, salad, chicken with gravy and peas on bread and dessert – we think they are trying to fatten us up so we will go slower dog racing!! Ha!ha!) with Lou Serre also and we found out that the race scheduled for this weekend north of Montreal has been cancelled due to warm weather (and the race is on a lake- not a good plan) so a lot of the evening was placing calls to see where else we could all race.
Upper body muscles are a little sore today after wrestling with the dog sled yesterday…..like every time I move after being still for awhile! At least I won the wrestling match!

Sat nite in Lile aux Coudres and Sunday's race

It was a musher's supper Sat nite at the only restaurant on the island- Italian cuisine- and pretty good! We sat with Bellerive's and Ludovic Couloux (from France and now lives and races very competitively in the 6 dog class in Quebec) and Hege Ingibristen and Per from Norway who can't find very many people to speak English!! (none that speak Norwegian!!!!!!) and had a delightful dinner! they had an auction of hockey stick and jerseys from the Montreal hockey team that went for thousands of dollars to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis campaign (apparently from having a "closed community" on the island, cystic fibrosis has become more prevalent than in the general population and is of great concern to the residents) We went to the dance after that where they had a band that played mostly American music (except for one song in French that sounded kind of like a polka) and my wonderful husband danced with me even with sore knees from last week's extravaganza race!!

Sunday - started out warmer, but got cooler and the course was faster. I went out feeling good about the trail, and I'll be darned, if at the very-short portion of the trail that was head-on passing (in the woods where the trail is narrower and the birm in higher) a team almost slammed into me on my right side of the trail and pulled me up onto the birm.....and down onto the ground!! Now if you remember,,,,, I lost my team last week........there was no way in "he- double toothpicks" that I was going to lose them again.....they stopped for moment but started up too fast for me to stand up and so I dragged (it seems like the "DeKuiper thing to do") first from the driving bow, then lost my grip and dragged from the brake......and just as I lost all strength and had to let go.......PEOPLE TO HELP ME!!!! No, my friends, I did not have the same measure of exposure that Randy had last week, but my snow pants did inhibit me from pumping after the fall!!! (hanging about 10 inches lower than normal!!) I feel more accomplished having had the trouble that I did and hanging on like I did, than if I finished where I could have (finished in 14th but probably without trouble could have been 11th or so) the really good thing is that I am strong enough to drag that far- we are guessing 1/4 of mile, could have been more or less, hard to tell while your face is in the snow, gathering in your jacket, your hands wanting to let go.........

Randy started out in 7th place from yesterday -he had dropped 3 dogs from the team and left with 13- everybody (including Sarah "Palin" in lead instead of Molly -who sometimes stops to poop ) and ended up 6 seconds out of 7th and 0.77 seconds out of 9th - lots of sore feet and shoulders.

At present, we are parked in the starting parking lot for the race.....all alone (everyone has left for the ferry back to the mainland) and we are about to have frozen chicken dinosaurs for dinner (didn't want to leave and have to drive the very steep hills in the dark and we are not in any hurry!!!)

The people here were fast to thank us for coming back to their race and we even had a chance to see our friend Francine Tremblay (we stayed at her house 2 years ago) and found out she has been very busy with a new job (used to teach English and interpret for bost cruises out to see the whales in the St. Laurence Seaway) as a manager at a "natural-made from cotton-paper company" the only one of a kind in Canada! so she was so busy we couldn't even spend dinner time with her! Dogs are fed, Randy is reading a book he doesn't really like and time for me to cook!!

Love you all and love each other!
God Bless you!

PS I so wanted to have pictures and you are probably wondering why - at the moment I have temporarily lost the location of my camera - as soon as it is recovered, more pictures!!

!!

We are sitting her in our truck in the dog parking lot on the island of Lil aux Coudres (which for you that don’t speak French, means “island of hazel nuts) and the wind is blowing so hard we are knowing the meaning of “rock and roll” – you can see hanging items swing back and forth 2 inches! And we are sitting in an area protected by a snowbank taller than our truck!!!!
This morning decided for sure to go to Lil aux coudres for the race- packed up and on the road at 10:30 after feeding and dropping dogs and took us until 3p to get to the ferry taking us to the island (the Bellerive entourage passed us twice cause grade in 2 kilometers!!!!!!! I tried not to, but I closed my eyes for about a minute!!!! Before they changed the road and rails a couple of years ago, a tour bus lost control coming down the hill and drove into the St. Laurence Seaway!!!! so it is safer now they go much faster than our “old girl” truck – as Randy like to call her)– but the most exciting part of the journey was the “getting here”!!! even though it has been 2 years since we were here, I was still very nervous going up and down the many hills it takes to get here!!!!! Disappointedly, I am not able to show you pictures of the trip and the scary hills cause I am not able to put my fingers on my camera (in other words, even though I am living on the road, I should be able to remember where the camera is and somehow in the last week it has found a “hidey hole” and I don’t know where that is!!!!!!!!!!!!!”).. Still the scariest is the downhill to the ferry coming to the island- 18% grade for 2 kilometers!! Got onto the island, fed the dogs supper and decided to see if our friend from 2 years ago, Francine Tremblay, was home – drove around to the other side of the island and the house was dark, so we decided to do something we have never done before….drive all the way around the island – 14 miles from end to end- and it was just sunset so you could still see that the tide was out in the river = leaving lots of little ice burgs stranded in the mud – and dark enough that I could see in the windows of many beautiful homes that sit on the shore of the island with a view the St. Laurence. The driver’s meeting is in the municipal building which they have all decorated for St. Valentine’s Day – at 8p so as I sign off for tonite, we will drop the dogs, get our race place/numbers and do a final drop for the dogs in the vicious wind and rock to sleep in the dog truck!! (perhaps with some ear plugs!!)
Everyone be safe and happy!!!
Randy and Cris
(Happy Valentine’s Day Aeja, Ocean, Oak, Caitlin and Baby Chavis and of course, all of you big kids!!!!! We love you all!!)


The rest is Sat and Sun combined - too darn busy to type!!

Sat morn did bring lots of snow blown into the trail - I went out 10th and had a good run (being pretty conservative not remembering the trail from 2 years ago- did have some pretty good sized hills - heavy on the drag going down) and ended up 11th place - which I was very happy with considering the competition level present! Randy had a good run with 16 dogs but his leader Molly had sore feet and didn't pull - will cut 3 dogs for tomorrow and ended up 7th!!! pretty good out of 16 very good competitors

Update from Charrette - "RainyTown"

Thursday morning we awoke to the pitter patter of rain on the roof! Not usually a good thing to have during dog racing season – we had heard from the weather forecast (and from our Michigan forecaster, Mitz!) that we could get rain, but it gave us enough concern to want to call Jim Lyman at Laconia, NH to see for sure if the rain was still there and if there was enough snow to have a race tomorrow (we should be leaving or have left by now to make it there comfortably by tonite). He told us they have 4 city trucks hauling snow to make trails. Randy is still walking around like “the mummy” stiff legged and my vote is that he really shouldn’t race this weekend – he could surely delay healing by rubbing his knees raw again – although they are still raw! So I am in the big house writing to you, and Randy is going to call Jason Rodenhouse I think to see if he is planning to go to Laconia- Lou Serrre talked to us when we dropped dogs out in the barn yard and he is wondering if there will be a race anywhere (I think he had decided to go to the island race – the one Randy had bad experiences with and doesn’t really want to race again). With this rain it could certainly ruin the trail on the island – it’s pretty much pouring now and the snow is melting quickly – it has also caused the drive up to the sugar shack to get very slippery and we slid down the last portion and frankly, don’t know if we can get back up!! So much up in the air!!!

Owwwwwwwwwwwwww!

45 minutes this morning trying to “unstick” the dressings from Randy’s 3 abrasions!!! 2 of the dressings were telfa and came off easy but I ran out of them and the 3rd was an eye patch/dressing that I thought was non=adherent but turned out to be quite “adherent”! He had a very restless nite and said that they hurt more today than ever – I have resorted to using the ointment for the dog’s feet on his legs cause it spreads easier without hurting him (I am using a butter knife – whatever works in a pinch!) Went to the Charrette Pharmacy today and managed to relay to the French only speaking clerk that I needed dressings and bought the only box they had! Then had to talk to the English speaking pharmacist to ask if they would order more cause I’m thinking we will use this one in 2 days.
Last nite dinner with Lou Serre (Lou is staying in his trailer down at the barn until he decides which race he will go to this weekend depending on the weather – Bellerives already decided they will not go to Laconia, NH and instead Melanie will drive a 12 dog team at the island race – that would be the island you get to by going down an 18 degree/very steep, short hill and then to the ferry and the same up the hill at the island – Randy does not like the trail on Lil aux Coudres so even though I love the people there and also hate the hill, we probably won’t go there, unless Laconia does not have snow for a race- whew that was a long sentence – good thing I am not being graded on this!!!) and the Bellerives at the house was very enjoyable! Pork and veal roast and my favorite salad again! Lots of fun stories about dog racing and childhood memories from all with the conversations around the table alternating from English to French to English then back to French….etc.! Lou is very well traveled having been to Alaska and all over Europe buying/selling/breeding dogs for racing and has the great stories to go with the travels.
This morning we dropped dogs and then headed up to Claude’s business garage to have them tighten the ball on the trailer hitch (which Randy noticed was very loose yesterday when he was pounding on a “poop scoop” to straighten it out, on top of the ball. They had been forewarned we would be there by Claude and it was done in 2 minutes!
Stopped at the restaurant across the street and had coffee with Melanie, Claude and Lou and then bought a couple of groceries for me to make “hot taco dip” (by request from Melanie cause I made it last year and they enjoyed it) and on the way to the grocery we saw billowing black smoke off from the highway 1 block and then sure enough, there was a house on fire!!! We didn’t see/hear any fire trucks come until we were done shopping so it may be the trucks had to come from quite far away – Charrette is much smaller that even Montague or Hesperia – probably only 40 homes tops!
This afternoon while we were reading Lou walked up to visit for a while and then we dropped the kids to play in the yard – yesterday’s altercation between Spiff, my leader and Runzl, my point dog, had resulted in an ear laceration that starts bleeding every time he shakes his head, so we have devised a plan to take a piece of gauze, soak it with super glue and glue it to the tip of his ear – you’ll hear how it worked later!!

Race results from St. Luc

You know how they say “a picture is worth a thousand words……”? well we don’t have the picture so you are going to get the thousand words!
Before I go into the details of the weekend race at St. Luc de Vincennes, just know that Randy DeKuiper gets “the award for the most creative effort in contributing to a blog posting”!!!!
I last left you all at the race site where we had finally gotten there after forgetting the sleds and mentioned the many sharp turns in the trail………First of all, I give myself a “bravery credit” but as I imagined the trail was difficult and thinking “no guts, no glory” got me no finish! I think I had made it around at least 7 (seemed like 20) curves, and thru the one I thought most difficult (a sharp S-curve) and was just thinking I was going to make it to the also difficult turn-around loop, and I can’t really even tell you what happened……one minute I was going the fasted I’ve ever gone down a trail and the next thing you know, I am walking on the trail watching my team run away even faster!!! No stopping, no collect $200, just going…… Every curve to that point I had slid around sideways and hit the outer bank and bobbled/almost lost my balance, so why I fell I do not know….it was a soft landing in very deep snow, just “poof”! So I try running for a ways cause I know I am not far (actually it was probably ½ mile0from the road crossing and there would be people there that would catch my team and I could finish the race – well they caught my team………and let some guy get on the sled and drive them back to the finish line. This I didn’t find out until I got back to the truck and Randy tells me – they hadn’t even radioed back the I was all right. So because I didn’t finish with the team and somebody else did, I was disqualifie (that’s French for disqualified in case you didn’t guess!) So that started the weekend off poorly!
Then Randy goes out nervous because of all the bad turns, only he has 18 dogs to whip him around the curves! The whole race Maria (the dog that had a pad missing from her foot, but had run well in training, and who is a leader but was running at point) never pulled, in fact the leaders and the other point dog ended up dragging (figuratively speaking) her around the trail for 13 miles. Randy had said all along he was using this race to decide who to run in Laconia NH next weekend so he was disappointed to come in at 16th, but thought he might have some dogs that would not do well, but didn’t expect Maria to be one of them.
An uneventful evening in the dog truck, chicken alfredo and green beans prepared by Chef Cris on her one-burner gourmet range!
Sunday racing is the “picture” you have been waiting to hear about! Only 16 dogs today- left smoothly from the chute- Randy was catching the guy that had left 4 minutes before him and thought they werent’ going fast (averaging 15 to 19 miles per hour) he was moving right along on a very bad trail (the rain the nite before and a multitude of other things contributed to a very punchy/soft trail with lots of holes in it) and he got to the turnaround loop and was trying to maneuver the sled so nobody got on the wrong side of the line, and fell (like a DeKuiper tradition???) Thankfully, there was a guy there that held grabbed the sled as Randy dragged by and Randy was able to get back on and moving.
Now comes the “good” part………………………………… 1.5 miles from the finish (actually quite near to where I had my little problem) Tahoe (a dog I may have mentioned before because she did the same thing at Daaquam) decided she didn’t want to run anymore and laid down, stopping the team. Now I want to believe what happens next is just one dog telling another the her work ethic stinks, but the other dog, Colleen, starts a fight with her and in breaking up the fight, loads Tahoe in the bag, the snow hooks get buried so deep in the soft trail that he can’t pull them out with only one hand and needs two, and wraps one arm around the driving bow and when he yanks the hook out the team jerks the sled and his arm comes off the sled and they’re off……….with Randy dragging again holding only the snow hook…….and dragging until all 3 layers of his clothing are down around his ankles…….bare skin on the icy crystally snow………dragging for who knows how far…….no one around (thankfully for modesty’s sake, but not for safety’s sake) and running really good and fast cause they were chasing a team that had passed him while he was stopped!! His snow pants are full of snow, he tries to apply pressure to the brake cause the snow hook isn’t catching, and finally they slow down enough for him to drag himself back up onto the sled, and pulls just his wind pants up (everything else is still down around his knees). Stops one more time cause another dog is looking tired and finally makes it back…………..tells me when we are taking dogs off the lines “I need a change of clothes” I say “you mean like a dry t-shirt, can it wait till we are done with the dogs?” he says “no, do I have to spell it out?” sooooooo I’m thinkin’ that it’s the old “should have gone to the bathroom before I left” story and I go in and get out the wipes, TP and new underwear- when he comes in and takes off his clothes, I see raw hide on both knees, abrasions on his thighs and you-know-where-else!!!! Of course doesn’t want me to put dressings on them so he just puts polar tec pants over and we finish with the dogs!
Randy ends up still in 16th, which is seeming like a minor miracle in view of the days events, and we go to the awards ceremony (Melanie got 3rd in the 6 dog and Claude had trouble too and even though normally he wins his race, he was 8th) and Randy starts telling his story and creates quite the guffaws heard around the room as it’s being translated into French!


Back home to our “sugar shack” with running water and heat! But first Randy stops to tell Melanie and Claude his story with lots of gasps of surprise from Melanie!
I search the truck looking for supplies to do major first aid dressings and actually came up with quite an array of onintments and stuff – Randy chooses the medicine we got for the dog’s feet and he’s all wrapped up from his knees to you know where!
Today (based on Randy’s pain level and the fact that most of the dogs don’t need to be trained today) is a slow “let the kids play around the house” day with dinner tonite with Bellerives!!
How many other blogs can provide this level of entertainment???!!!

So I'm delinquent.......missed a day of posting!!

Wednesday nite dinner with the priest was delightful - he spent 3 years in Pennsylvania to learn to speak English and is a good conversationalis! We even had Randy's favorite, sugar pie, for dessert!

Thursday they dragged the training trail at Bellerives and they did train but when Randy went out on the snowmobile to check it himself, his feet sunk in the trail and he decided not to train, thinking he might hurt some dog shoulders going through soft snow. So we let the kids out again in the yard and had again only minor altercations. Went with Claude and Melanie Bellerive to the Charette restaurant (the only one - La Villagous) and met their friends, Marce and Giselle (Marcell has been putting in the racing trail all this week) and he told us that today he was putting in the 6 dog trail turn-around. We had pizza and laughs and I tried to get Marcel and GiGi to speak more English with me by making them comfortable talking to me (they worry so much they are making mistakes when the Quebecers speak English!)

Up this morning to feed, temperature moderate (I think we are just getting acclimated to cold - it doesn't really feel cold any more) and partly sunny - knew we didn't want to train the day before a race so we let the kids out to play again - they are really getting in to this "playtime" being free - so much that tonite when we fed at the race site, they seem wistful, wanting to be loose around the truck!! (I am sure you are asking yourself how I can imagine a dog is "wistful" - you have to be here to know) Started out packing up to go about 12, left at 1:30, got 1/2 way here to St. Luc to the race site and I looked up at the sled rack in the front of the truck and said, "Randy, did you bring the sleds?" XX00!!!!! No!!! So we turned around and finally ended up here at 3:30, fed dogs and went out on the snowmobile to look at the trail (Cold enough my cheeks were thinking "frostbite")

Oh my......there are lots and lots of 180 degree, hairpin turns!!!! Especially for Randy with 18 dogs!!! So I should have some good strories tomorrow nite. Tonite the driver's meeting and draw for the place we go out!!!

Ps: my connection cut out in the middle of my post so here it is Sat morn up at 8, feed dogs, did the "supportive" thing and went in and for the mere price of $7.50 got breakfast of egg "souffle??", beans, sausage, toast and coffee - the dogs are getting part of it!! I am pretty nervous about racing at 11a but trying not to let my stomach know!!!! Talk to you tonite or tomorrow!!!

Supposed to train today.....

But the trail had blown in over nite (as Randy found out when he went out to drag the trail and couldn't get thru) so today was another let the dogs loose day!! - as you can see from the picture!
Tonite dinner with Bellerives and their priest- very nice!!!

Talk to you all tomorrow!!!

As you saw from my last post, we are in Charrette, Quebec with our good friends the Bellerives (Melanie, and her parents Renelle and Claude) and arrived on Friday early evening. We called to let them know we were close and they came up to the “sugar shack “ to turn up the heat and turn on the lights for us before we got here. Saturday we trained on their trails all the dogs, and then went in to the “big house” and had coffee – they were apologetic that they couldn’t have dinner with us Sat nite because they had arranged to have dinner with their architect and his wife so we just settled in from a long day of having problems on the road and shopping at Walmart!

Sunday we got some fence from the barn at Bellerives, and because the snow is so deep, we were able to block off the drive down to the barn with a 6 ft. section of fence and drop the dogs in groups of 4-6 (depending on who gets along with who) they had great fun running around the cabin (not as much as I thought they would go around, but then I’m not a dog!) Every day they have a giant front-end loader (one I know you would like to drive Lucas!) come up and scrape the very-uphill drive here to the sugar shack. So we have huge snow banks and waist high snow to make a perfect “yard” for the dogs to play/exercise in on the days we don’t train.

Sunday nite we walked down to the big house and rode with them up to the only restaurant in town that Claude’s brother now owns (Claude used to own it) and had dinner with Melanie, Renelle and Claude and Marce and GiGi, good friends of the Bellerives. Delightful conversation and good food – pretty funny every time I try to guess what to order from the French menu!! (funnier yet, I got French onion soup for an appetizer) Lots of talk about the Daaquam race and the trail for this weekend at St. Luc with all of the snow they have had and are getting pressed for time to make a good trail to race on.
Today (Monday) up at 8, fed dogs breakfast, then Randy oatmeal, read books and rested and noted that we have an additional guest in the sugar shack that I had heard last nite – a mouse only as big as a fur Ball!! Scratching around in the box the dog meat is thawing in near the kitchen!! Now mice are generally very scary to me……but since I had one come into our Michigan house while I was on the toilet in the bathroom and I yelled at the mouse to get out, I have developed and new sense of power over the little creatures and they seem not to bother me as much (here’s hoping I can do the same thing with snakes!) So today when we were training down at the barn Randy got some “sticky mouse traps” and we will see what we catch!
Training was good (trained all 34 dogs) and most everybody looked happy and healthy. The video I took was not great and you will have to look with a magnifying glass to see the team out in the distance down the hill – I couldn’t see well enough in the digital camera to tell what I was capturing.Sorry about the quality of the video- I know what I am looking for and can hardly see it, so I am imagining you all are going to have a really hard time!

Fed dogs and waiting to drop them again and then walk down the hill to the “big house” for a family dinner. Hadn't heard the voices of our grandkids (Ocean and Aeja) in too long and loved having a little chat with them.
Had to give a big thank you to Claude, last year when we came here they had plowed the hill, but it was so narrow that the sides of the dog truck scraped the snow banks and Randy had to cut down a tree that we kept hitting with the side of the truck. This year the drive is plenty wide and he has already cleaned it down to the ice 3 times since we have been here!! So we are having no problems driving up and down the hill.

Dinner was lovely as usual (with my favorite salad - some special seasoning and oil) and the Bellerives are perfect hosts!

Today is Tuesday and it was a "drop the dogs around the truck for fun" day - and they were much better this time, especially since we knew today which ones don't really "play well together"! Not only did we catch one "critter" (I say critter cause it doesn't look like a regular mouse, tinier and like I said before, round like a fur ball) that Randy thinks is a shrew - whatever! he was stuck and dead! also another critter found its way into the dog food bucket and couldn't get out which Randy found while we were serving breakfast to our 34 kids!

Now I am up at the house hooked in to the internet in the formal living room (nicest room I've ever been in) and doing laundry and writing to you!! Know that we are having a wonderful time and are still safe!!! Will give you an update tomorrow after training! (by the way, someone out there reading, post a comment for me to let me know if you can go back farther into the posting history than the number I limited it to pop-up when you open the blog - I want to make sure you can access all of the older blogs somehow - especially my Mom!)